Bicycle frames have been manufactured according to fairly standard designs for many years. With the relatively recent advent of mountain bikes which are used on more rugged terrain having various obstacles, several problems have increasingly become apparent. Should a branch or other object somehow become lodged between the spokes of the rear wheel, the branch can tend to impart a high degree of fore-aft or lateral stress on the derailleur assembly which is, in turn, passed through the dropout to the rear frame assembly which, in turn, can often be bent or otherwise damaged.
It is therefore an object of this assembly to provide a dropout assembly which prevents such frame bending and which allows easy and inexpensive repair of the bicycle after such an accident.